It often feels like writing is a form a therapy—a peculiar one, at that: unexpected, since we are not often taught to view it that way. In the process of attempting to make the inexplicable inner sensations tangible (and inevitably failing) perhaps we learn something about the operation of our psyche. Even, for fleeting moments, feel that we have transcended it and become something new in that feeling of discovery.

And then—there are those long, bleak periods where we think "What is there to say that hasn't been said, and even if there was, what does it matter? Will anyone read this? And even if they do, what is the point?" But, the memories of clairvoyant buoyancy that came, however infrequently, where between the words and the inner impetus there was a surging alignment—usually call us eventually to rouse ourselves out of the defeatist thinking, or "imposter syndrome," or whatever it is that has us briefly paralyzed. We also then remember the wonderful interchanges with others we have had around creativity, the ways in which we connected to them and became bigger then ourselves in our art.

Ultimately, I feel like writing/music/creativity in whatever form has value because it helps us enjoy and/or somewhat detach (in a healthy way) from the baser aspects of our physical existence—which let's be honest, is often painfully mundane, repetitive, uncomfortably driven by continuous craving for satiation and fleeing from anything perceived as a threat.